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My brother recently got married, and he and his wife wanted a rustic vintage theme which included having this vintage school desk as their signing table. The picture above is how it looked on the day, and the photo below was how it looked before. That picture seriously doesn't do it justice though - it was so ugly! It had about seven layers of paint on it, the inside was all rusted and full of dirt (no idea why), and the top was coming loose from it's hinges.

I tried to use paint stripper on it, but it didn't really work so my husband and I ended up sanding the whole thing. It took ages! After it was all sanded, we managed to get out all the screws to take it apart. They had been painted over many times, so they were pretty stuck! We sanded back all the hardware to get rid of the remaining paint and rust and then coated it with a steel protectant, which we also painted the legs/frame with. The wooden top is coated with a sanding sealer in case we decided to stain it later, but the happy couple gave it the thumbs up so it stayed as is ^____^

I went as hipster Princess Bubblegum for Halloween this year, which meant I needed a crown! I crocheted this in two parts (the circle part was separate from the rest of the crown) and the gem is a felt circle painted with glitter mod podge. I used 100% wool, which wasn't the brightest idea since it was *so itchy* on my forehead (I wore my fringe up on the night). I ended up folding up a tissue and putting it between my head and the crown because after a couple of hours I just couldn't stand it >___< I'm going to sew in a felt panel to prevent this from happening next time I wear it! The uppy bit of the crown (mmmm, technical terms ...) is held up with a craft stick that I sewed to the back. This was fine for me, but if I was making this for someone else I think I would try pipe cleaners or maybe even fabric starch.

I also made myself some brooches to wear. The lollypop was made using a Twinkie Chan pattern, and the wrapped sweet is just a crocheted rectangle with a ball of scrap paper in the middle.

And Pops de Milk made a fantastic pattern for Science the candy corn rat, so I had to make her too! I safety pinned her to my top so she could ride on my shoulder all evening ^___^

I had pink hair over Halloween this year, which I figured called for a Princess Bubblegum costume! I didn't want to have to sew anything since my machine is broken, so I checked out what I had in my wardrobe and figured I had everything I needed for a hipster version of PB ^___^ But, dressing in pink does not a princess make! I crocheted myself a crown, Science the candy corn rat, and lollypop and wrapped sweet brooches. From polymer clay I made a Peppermint Butler brooch and some mini donuts which I made into earrings and yet another brooch.

I carried my coffee cup around all evening, and it was actually really handy since I was the designated driver and sticking to water. The absolute best part of my night was singing Thrift Shop at karaoke, solely for the line "headed to the mezzanine, dressed in all pink ..." (even though I did cheat a bit with the shorts!) ~___^

*waves* Hello! This is not my normal board, since I am generally pretty terrible at making cakes. However, it was my best friend's birthday so I decided to attempt to make a cake nonetheless. And to my great surprise it turned out well! ^____^ I used a recipe that I made up which tastes like the cake version of Anzac biscuits. I was a little worried it wouldn't turn out well, so I made two. And they both were fine (apart from a little bit of sinking in the middle), so I figured I should use them both! I put coconut icing between the cake layers, and iced the top and sides with it as well. The icing on the sides has unsalted butter added so it would stick properly.

I used some fudge writing pens from the supermarket to decorate the top. I did the Welcome to Night Vale eye at the top, attempted to make something that vaguely resembled the Arby's sign on the side, and then added stars over the rest.

And when the candles were in and lit, they were the lights above the Arby's! I was really happy with how it looked, it tasted delicious, and my bestie loved it - I think I've gotta call that a success ^___^

I found some really cute Halloween cat cross stitch patterns, but I knew cross stitching would take me ages so I made them out of perler beads instead ^___^ And then I made banners! For Frankenkitty and Zombiekitty I just glued the cats onto either end of a piece of fringe trimming, added hanging loops, and stuck on some glittery letters ^___^

For witch kitty I covered a wooden hoop with orange yarn, glued on the cat, and used baker's twine to make a hanging loop and to attach the pendant. The pendant is from a scrapbooking pad that I found at the craft store; the pendants are all perforated at the top so you can just tear off as many as you need. I used a chalk texta to add the words and hung it up next to some free postcards I got from the library ^____^

I have been making a lot of hair bows lately, and my dressing table was becoming a bit of a mess so I thought I should make some kind of storage for them. My dad gave me a scrap piece of wood which I cut into a cloud shape using my jigsaw. I sanded it, painted it white, and gave it a smiley face. Because everything is cuter with a smiley face ^___^ Then I used my staple gun to add a hanging string and the rainbow ribbons. I used about a meter of each colour ribbon, so my collection has plenty of room to grow! ^___^

There was a bare wall in my house, which obviously couldn't be tolerated ~___^ so I made this banner using scrapbooking paper, tape, and baker's twine. I printed each letter onto A4 paper, cut them out, and then used them as a template for cutting the scrapbooking paper. It was a bit of a pain taping them all in place along the baker's twine, but I really like how it turned out!

I saw a really cool metallic bat headband online, but it was suuuper expensive - so I decided to make my own! I used some plastic bats leftover from last Halloween, silver spray paint, spray varnish (because painting the plastic bats left them a bit sticky), E6000 glue, an old headband, and some ribbon. Everything I used came from my stash, which means this version clocked in at a pleasing $0! ^___^

Sometimes I can go a little overboard with making things ... case in point, these hair bows! I used some of my novelty buttons on these ones ^___^

The bug bow has a little plastic toy frog glued onto the centre while the purple and orange floral one has a wooden silver bee.

These two I left plain, although I am considering adding something atomic to the centre of the space kids one.

The blue bow has a galaxy pendant in the centre which I made from a necklace pendant, an epoxy dome sticker, a print out of a Hubble telescope photo, and some glitter nailpolish. The nailpolish was scented so I call this one the Strawberry Nebula bow ^___^ The owl is also a necklace pendant, I just cut off the hanging loop.

This final bow (... for now!) is made from fabric which I designed and some jewellery charms ^____^